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YOUR WASHINGTON AND YOU! A WEEKLY REPORT from KARL MUNDT
SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA United States Senate "For A Fair Chance For A Free People" VOLUME XIII (1951) NUMBER 34 - FOR RELEASE AUG. 29 OR AFTER
FARM PRICES NOT INFLATIONARY. Press statements by President Truman, Michael V. DiSalle, and Eric Johnston of late have
been geared to the theme, "The new price control act will not work; we need a new law, tighter controls, more executive authority, additional administrative power". Congress up to now has turned a more than chilly shoulder to these requests for increased personal power.
Senator Maybank of South Carolina, chairman of the Banking & Currency Committee which writes price control legislation took the Senate floor last week to say, "I want to make it clear to the American people that it is the duty of the persons appointed by the President of the United States to enforce the present law. It is easy to say prices are going up. Yet, the law has not been
given a chance to work. I think it is an injustice to the American people for the Administration on Pennsylvania Avenue or on Connecticut Avenue to tell them that prices will rise 10% or 20%. There is no justification whatever for such statements. The present law is a good one. Department of Agriculture figures show that prices of farm commodities have decreased for the last two periods on which the Department has issued statements. The prices of most commodities are away below parity, with the exception of the prices of cotton and wheat".
Senator Capehart, Indiana Republican, then took the floor to support the Maybank argument. Said Capehart: "Of course there will be price increases if the Administration continues to tell the American people that prices will increase. The attitude taken by the Administrators and the press releases they issue frighten the American people when they tell the people that prices will rise."
Kiplinger's Washington Letter refers to such antics by the OPS officials as attempts "to talk prices up". These efforts of high Washington officials to produce "scare buying" and to "talk prices up" simply to justify their predictions that the present bill is inadequate have boomeranged badly insofar as Congress is concerned.
The Administrators have OBVIOUSLY DELAYED putting the provisions of the new price control measure into effect and in the meantime they scurry about the country giving speeches and issuing releases to the effect that "prices are sure to go up unless you
give us more power, more authority, and more control."
Note: Actually one reason for the BAD ADMINISTRATION which price control is
getting is that there is more truth than poetry to the current capital gag that OPS
really stands for "Office of Political Security" since so many lame-ducks, political
rejects and Democratic party officials and candidates have been given the lush enforcement and administrative jobs. Unlike the OPA of World War II days, OPS has become a cozy haven for Democratic politicians in virtually every State in the Union.
Consequently, efficiency has suffered.
# # #
THE FACTS ARE WITH THE FARMERS. Supporting the foregoing, average hourly earnings
have RISEN from $.598 per hour during the period of 1935-39 to $1.566 during the
first quarter of 1951. Bureau of Agriculture Economics figures indicate that during
this same period the cost of the Market Basket has risen from $341. to $719. Thus, it
is clear that city consumers can buy the same amount of food that they did in 1935-39
with about 81% of the same man-hours of labor then required. The farmer is very
definitely not the villain in the inflationary drama of today!
# # #
THANK YOU, RUTH MONTGOMERY. Syndicated columnist, Ruth Montgomery, devoted her
August 20 efforts to Senator Mundt's North-South political alliance proposal. She
very accurately reported a recent radio program on which Congressman Walter E. Rogers
(D-Tex) and Senator Mundt appeared.
Rogers proposed that the alliance be formed by Republicans moving over to join
the Southern Democrats to "vote for one of our fine Southern statesman for President".
"Fine," said Mundt, "IF you can get him nominated. I dare you to try to nominate
Senator Harry Byrd for example at Chicago on your Democratic ticket. If you can do
it, I'll be glad to vote for him - provided if you can't get him nominated you will
vote for the candidate we Republicans nominate!"
Just then the moderator announced "Time's up" so Congressman Rogers was spared
the necessity of answering the Senator's challenge.
It is Mundt's contention that the next Democratic Convention will either nominate Harry Truman for a 3rd term or somebody definitely to the left of Truman. Mundt
holds the Democrats can not and will not nominate anybody not a New Dealer.
# # #
"THE SKY" NO LONGER LIMITS! Ordinarily this column is too crowded to carry exchange
items from papers and magazines, However, a recent editorial by South Dakota's famed
"Cap" Nohner of the Hayti Herald Enterprise tells so much with so little it should be
repeated. Says "Cap" - "A slang expression of another day to describe spendthrift
openhandedness was 'the sky is the limit'. But this, like a lot of other things, is
definitely obsolete now. One can imagine hearing President Truman demanding
impatiently, 'OUT OF MY WAY, SKY!' "
# # # #

The work from which this copy was made did not include a formal copyright notice. This work may be protected by U.S. copyright law (Title 17, United States Code), which governs reproduction, distribution, public display, and other uses of protected works. Some uses may be legal with permission from the copyright holder, if the copyright on the work has expired, or if the use is fair use or compliance with the law. All use of DLSD material and content, whether utilized under fair use or used with written permission to publish, must name the Karl E. Mundt Historical & Educational Foundation, Karl E. Mundt Library, Dakota State University, as the original source for the material.

The work from which this copy was made did not include a formal copyright notice. This work may be protected by U.S. copyright law (Title 17, United States Code), which governs reproduction, distribution, public display, and other uses of protected works. Some uses may be legal with permission from the copyright holder, if the copyright on the work has expired, or if the use is fair use or compliance with the law. All use of DLSD material and content, whether utilized under fair use or used with written permission to publish, must name the Karl E. Mundt Historical & Educational Foundation, Karl E. Mundt Library, Dakota State University, as the original source for the material.

Date Digitized

2013-03-04

Transcript

YOUR WASHINGTON AND YOU! A WEEKLY REPORT from KARL MUNDT
SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA United States Senate "For A Fair Chance For A Free People" VOLUME XIII (1951) NUMBER 34 - FOR RELEASE AUG. 29 OR AFTER
FARM PRICES NOT INFLATIONARY. Press statements by President Truman, Michael V. DiSalle, and Eric Johnston of late have
been geared to the theme, "The new price control act will not work; we need a new law, tighter controls, more executive authority, additional administrative power". Congress up to now has turned a more than chilly shoulder to these requests for increased personal power.
Senator Maybank of South Carolina, chairman of the Banking & Currency Committee which writes price control legislation took the Senate floor last week to say, "I want to make it clear to the American people that it is the duty of the persons appointed by the President of the United States to enforce the present law. It is easy to say prices are going up. Yet, the law has not been
given a chance to work. I think it is an injustice to the American people for the Administration on Pennsylvania Avenue or on Connecticut Avenue to tell them that prices will rise 10% or 20%. There is no justification whatever for such statements. The present law is a good one. Department of Agriculture figures show that prices of farm commodities have decreased for the last two periods on which the Department has issued statements. The prices of most commodities are away below parity, with the exception of the prices of cotton and wheat".
Senator Capehart, Indiana Republican, then took the floor to support the Maybank argument. Said Capehart: "Of course there will be price increases if the Administration continues to tell the American people that prices will increase. The attitude taken by the Administrators and the press releases they issue frighten the American people when they tell the people that prices will rise."
Kiplinger's Washington Letter refers to such antics by the OPS officials as attempts "to talk prices up". These efforts of high Washington officials to produce "scare buying" and to "talk prices up" simply to justify their predictions that the present bill is inadequate have boomeranged badly insofar as Congress is concerned.
The Administrators have OBVIOUSLY DELAYED putting the provisions of the new price control measure into effect and in the meantime they scurry about the country giving speeches and issuing releases to the effect that "prices are sure to go up unless you
give us more power, more authority, and more control."
Note: Actually one reason for the BAD ADMINISTRATION which price control is
getting is that there is more truth than poetry to the current capital gag that OPS
really stands for "Office of Political Security" since so many lame-ducks, political
rejects and Democratic party officials and candidates have been given the lush enforcement and administrative jobs. Unlike the OPA of World War II days, OPS has become a cozy haven for Democratic politicians in virtually every State in the Union.
Consequently, efficiency has suffered.
# # #
THE FACTS ARE WITH THE FARMERS. Supporting the foregoing, average hourly earnings
have RISEN from $.598 per hour during the period of 1935-39 to $1.566 during the
first quarter of 1951. Bureau of Agriculture Economics figures indicate that during
this same period the cost of the Market Basket has risen from $341. to $719. Thus, it
is clear that city consumers can buy the same amount of food that they did in 1935-39
with about 81% of the same man-hours of labor then required. The farmer is very
definitely not the villain in the inflationary drama of today!
# # #
THANK YOU, RUTH MONTGOMERY. Syndicated columnist, Ruth Montgomery, devoted her
August 20 efforts to Senator Mundt's North-South political alliance proposal. She
very accurately reported a recent radio program on which Congressman Walter E. Rogers
(D-Tex) and Senator Mundt appeared.
Rogers proposed that the alliance be formed by Republicans moving over to join
the Southern Democrats to "vote for one of our fine Southern statesman for President".
"Fine," said Mundt, "IF you can get him nominated. I dare you to try to nominate
Senator Harry Byrd for example at Chicago on your Democratic ticket. If you can do
it, I'll be glad to vote for him - provided if you can't get him nominated you will
vote for the candidate we Republicans nominate!"
Just then the moderator announced "Time's up" so Congressman Rogers was spared
the necessity of answering the Senator's challenge.
It is Mundt's contention that the next Democratic Convention will either nominate Harry Truman for a 3rd term or somebody definitely to the left of Truman. Mundt
holds the Democrats can not and will not nominate anybody not a New Dealer.
# # #
"THE SKY" NO LONGER LIMITS! Ordinarily this column is too crowded to carry exchange
items from papers and magazines, However, a recent editorial by South Dakota's famed
"Cap" Nohner of the Hayti Herald Enterprise tells so much with so little it should be
repeated. Says "Cap" - "A slang expression of another day to describe spendthrift
openhandedness was 'the sky is the limit'. But this, like a lot of other things, is
definitely obsolete now. One can imagine hearing President Truman demanding
impatiently, 'OUT OF MY WAY, SKY!' "
# # # #